Katie Mather

It is with a heavy heart I must make the announcement that, yes, I will be continuing my unhealthy coping mechanisms from the last 23 years of life indefinitely.

I think I’m trying to distract myself from thinking about other things because any thought that comes about naturally at 3AM is going to be a disaster.

This is unfortunate news!

This is as equally devastating for you as is it for me, but we just can’t be together. Art is driving us apart—and by art I specifically mean mine, because I can’t remember what you told me you did, but I’m an architect. I just need to focus on my craft. And also sleep with other people.

A VERY BAD THING HAPPENED.

I think about how she smiles without her teeth in all of her pictures and you used to make fun of me for how loud my laugh is, which just shows how fundamentally different the reasons for why anyone would and should be interested in either of us are.

To say I’m surprised by how much changes even within just a year is so stupidly cliché and unnecessary of me. I feel like I sometimes write as if I’m the first person to ever experience very simple and common revelations and it drives me nuts because of course every living and breathing human being could tell you, yeah, things change a lot in a year. They’re supposed to. I’m not special.

I’d say I think about death in an incredibly self-absorbed way, because it usually comes up whenever I consider whether or not what I’m doing is actually Important or Worthy. This happens often. I am always stressed.

I think I’ve been dreaming about my teeth falling out because I am constantly surprised when I remember how people can exist without me. I don’t think I’m necessarily a vain person—I am just so easily obsessed with other people that it sets me back a bit when I realize that’s not really how things work for everyone else.

One of my favorite things to do (and coincidentally everyone around me’s least favorite thing I do) is to drop off the face of the Earth unexpectedly and without notice of when I’ll resurface again.

Your apartment had a very distinct smell that I remember almost crying over during our last day sitting around on that super shitty couch (remember how the back of the couch was broken?) and you were taking post-its off the wall and I felt like my head was blowing up like a balloon because of how hard I was keeping it all together.

I do not believe in signs or stars aligning or fate or whatever, but when I came back from California, my other friend was filling me in on her sort-of-ex’s actions from the 10 days I was gone. And instead of suggesting we curse him or something, I just blurted out: “Oh my god, that’s what I do to other people too.”